


Pure of Heart, Taking to Flight

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Animagus, Gen, Pack, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 12:28:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15707232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: The western wizarding community does not officially condone the use of the term 'monsters'...OR War has a way of changing men for the worse.





	Pure of Heart, Taking to Flight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flightinflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/gifts).



The western wizarding community does not officially condone the use of the term 'monsters'; there have been far too many diplomatic conflicts, misunderstandings concerning creature classifications, and general upsets with potions for that. However, excluding it from use on official forms (e.g. 'Mr Scamander was arrested for the possession of a monster who ate my shoe') doesn't prevent it from circulating more informally. Whatever noble virtues they claimed in the last century, those living in a society as diversely populated yet innately prejudiced as the magical simply find it far too useful. It covers, to use a phrase that drifts over occasionally from the muggle quarters, 'a multiple of sins'.

 

Percival Graves is a monster. He has been ever since that night on No Man's Land when he saved Theseus' life and cursed himself all in one sweep of his hand. That werewolf died, and the soldiers lived on obliviously until bullets or gas or other natural causes took them, but the world wasn't safer. The first full moon, Percival gargled wolfsbane until Theseus snatched it away as if whether or not he survived _mattered_ , and he still changed, and judging by Theseus' pale silence the next morning he wasn't any better than the one they put down.

 

Yet for reasons he still cannot fathom, he doesn't find himself abandoned. For a long time only two people knew the truth of his nature; neither of them has ever condemned him for it.

 

Seraphina berates him for the monthly inconvenience, scheduling raids to avoid that single night or meetings to accommodate the devastation it wreaks on his body. He tells her that he doesn't need time to recover, cringing when he knows she's holding back. He much prefers it when she has no other option, because he can feel useful, whilst savouring the vindictive pleasure of pressing down on a bruise. Of course he'd never change on the job, never risk exposing his president, but his instincts run high, and the morning after his patience runs low. He fights to keep the animal at bay, the way he should, and seizes the opportunities he can to force the monster to work for them. Seraphina made her plans for the two of them long before those teeth closed in his shoulder, and he'll hold together his tattered humanity or rip it asunder, whatever she needs.

 

As for Theseus...

 

No matter how much he insists otherwise, Percival still feels responsible for what happened to him. Of course he knows nobody has ever dictated their animagus form - at least, not substantiated with anything like real proof. Unfortunately, as much as the saying states that the form suits the wizard, he finds it hard to call it a coincidence that Theseus becomes a wolf too.

 

Not that Theseus told him. Percival listened to spreading rumours about the wolf haunting the battlefield: sometimes just sightings, sometimes attacking stray German troops, never tied to one location and always on the hunt. He wrote from further north asking if there's any truth to it; had to wait because Theseus' correspondence had grown so patchy lately, despite his complaints for over two years (how are there even any lives left) about having too much time on his hands just waiting it out in the trenches. All he knew was that Theseus had been picked up by some western wizarding coalition and he just feels grateful for Theseus finally moving away from the front. (The reports from the Somme made him want to retch, enough to repulse even a monster dreaming of real prey, a real hunt.) When his reply finally did come, it was too bright and too chatty and Percival knew that he was hiding something: he was too busy trying to lie to even mention the wolf.

 

Then one night the wolf saved him - dragged him out with its muzzle still stained with enemy blood - and he realised just what Theseus had done to himself.

 

Technically Theseus has always had a preference for Transfiguration; it doesn't come to him as easily as duelling but then very few things do. That didn't prevent Percival from screaming at him because how could he take that risk? (Don't they already ask him to do enough, shredding that bright soul of his with every kill?) Prospective animagi study for months, _years_ to make sure nothing goes wrong. From what Percival could calculate, Theseus couldn't have had more than two months at most. All because someone with the right title and the right words asked him to do it for his country. 

 

They kept fighting until the full moon came around, Percival livid and Theseus unrepentant. He had to watch Theseus summoned for missions by his new generals, vanishing off into the night and returning with no lies to offer and a glint in his eyes Percival recognised from the monster stretching in his skin. Theseus entered this war as the best man Percival ever knew, for all his ridiculous jokes and questionable pasttimes; now he has medals instead.

 

Something in him knew Theseus had something incredibly stupid in mind; that horrible extra sense he'd discovered before they'd even met in person. Perhaps it was the way he stayed just shy of too close all day, no matter how much the thing inside Percival snapped out at him; perhaps the tone of his voice; the tilt of his body. Percival tried not to panic, until it suddenly dawned on him that Theseus intended to stay. All night.

 

You can't argue when your body is twisting around you, but Percival gave it a good try. Theseus looked too still as he watched, his usual outbursts contained, and the last thing Percival remembered was watching his friend's eyes turn golden.

 

The next morning, he didn't feel the deep ache inside. His bones still screeched and his skin still felt too tight but he didn't feel alone. He didn't feel drained. He felt ... whole.

 

He turned his head just in time to see the wolf melt back into Theseus - still muddied and bloodied and Percival knew it wasn't theirs - who smiled at him, contented but with too much teeth and his eyes glinting in a way that couldn't be human.

 

The war ended, at least officially; they returned to their countries with commendations and promotions. Percival watches the moon rise and set and tries not to think about what might be happening in Europe, or how much he hopes Theseus is safe. For all that he tries to fight it down, he can't help longing for that peace again, in the middle of the blood; the sight of Theseus' face.

 

He looked how Percival felt: like a sated monster.


End file.
